University of Virginia Library

XL. Distinguished Alumni

During the short interval between the session of 1865–
66 and the session of 1870–71, no graduate of the School
of Medicine of the University of Virginia seems to have
been enrolled in the medical corps of the United States
Army. Five entered in the course of 1875. Between
1875 and 1894, twenty-eight at least were admitted, of
whom eleven obtained the rank of either first or second
in merit in the examinations. Twelve applicants were
rejected,—two on account of physical infirmities; the remainder
for defects of general education alone. It was
estimated that, in 1894, about ten per cent of the surgeons
on the active list of the Army were graduates of
the University of Virginia. As to the Navy, it was
stated, in 1873, by a member of the Naval Examining
Board that the records of this branch brought out the
fact that, during the preceding twenty years, not a single
graduate of that institution who had submitted to the
tests of admission had failed to be successful. This remarkable
upshot could be claimed for the candidates of
no other seat of learning. It is true that the number
coming forward was large, as so few of the young physicians,
fresh from their professional course, had, during
these impoverished times in the South, the means of
support while waiting for general practice in their native
communities,

The tests of admission to both the military and the
naval services steadily grew more stringent. This began
to be observable as early as 1875. Hitherto, a purely
theoretical knowledge of medicine and surgery alone was
indispensable; but, afterwards, practical information acquired
in hospitals came to be considered as of equal
weight in judging the competency of a candidate. In
consequence of this broadening in the requirements, the
graduates of the University of Virginia, after the completion
of their medical studies in that institution, entered
the hospitals of New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore,
and there obtained the clinical experience which was now
imperatively demanded by the examining boards of the
Army and Navy.

"In one year," says E. H. Green, a surgeon in the
United States army, "there were four vacancies to be
filled on the staff of the New York Charity Hospital.
Three University of Virginia men applied. They went
in one, two, three; and the fourth place fell to one of the
other numerous competitors. After that, the faculties
of the New York city medical schools made a rule that
no outside graduate could compete for hospital positions
unless he had taken a course previously at one of the
New York medical schools. This was directed in great
measure at graduates of the University of Virginia.
Sometime after 1874, two University of Virginia graduates
failed before the naval medical examining board.
One came up again and passed. The other was socially
impossible. Since that date, there have been several
University men who have had to make a second trial.
But I am glad to say that, after one trial, they came
back again, and I know of no failure outright."

It is a fact of record, that, in 1898, there were in
the medical corps of the United States Army one hundred

and seventy-four surgeons; in the medical corps of
the Navy, one hundred and fifty-four; in the corps of the
Marine Hospital, seventy-one. The graduates of the
University of Virginia in the medical corps of the Army
numbered twenty-four or 13.5 per cent of the whole
body; in the medical corps of the Navy, twenty-four, or
15.5 per cent; in the service of the Marine Hospital,
twenty-one, or nearly 30 per cent. "Between 1870 and
1901," says Dr. J. S. Taylor, of the United States Navy,
"eighty-one graduates of the University of Virginia medical
school appeared before the Federal examining board
for medical officers. Of these, a 50.6 percentage were
successful as compared with a 26 percentage for the graduates
of other colleges. Fifteen of the thirty-three candidates
rejected were unacceptable on account of physical
deficiencies."

In 1901, 15.8 percentage of the medical officers enrolled
on the active list of the Navy were graduates of
the University of Virginia. In the interval between September
I, 1893, and July 1, 1903, only two candidates
in possession of professional diplomas from that institution
were rejected because they were personally disqualified,
and only seven because they were afflicted with serious
physical infirmities. It has been asserted that the
highest mark credited to a candidate before the medical
examining board was reached by Dr. A. S. Garnett, an
alumnus who, out of a possible 780, attained to 770.

The very remarkable success of the medical graduates
of the University of Virginia in obtaining, during the
Seventh Period, 1865–95, such a conspicuous foothold in
the Federal service has been attributed to a combination
of influences: (1) that institution sent before the national
boards the flower of its medical class, who, not enjoying
like the honor-men of the northern medical colleges,

excellent opportunities in their native communities
to acquire a lucrative practice, were satisfied to enter the
province of the National Government; (2) the average
graduate of the medical school of the University of Virginia
was indisputably superior in professional equipment
to the average graduate of other medical schools
of the country; (3) accustomed to rigid and prolonged
preparation in that institution, he did not shrink from the
additional searching study imposed by his candidacy.

The most famous graduate of the School of Medicine
of the University of Virginia, during the Seventh Period,
1865–95, was Walter Reed. He matriculated at the
age of sixteen in the academic department, but his father,
being too impoverished by the recent war to continue his
son's cultural education after the first year, Reed entered
the medical school, from which he graduated with
the professional degree by the time that he had reached
his eighteenth year. After a course of study and observation
in the public wards of Baltimore and New York,—
in which latter city, he was connected with the hospital
on Blackwell's Island,—he was admitted to the medical
corps of the Army. This was in 1875. During the ensuing
years, he was a member of numerous boards appointed
by the Surgeon-General to investigate epidemic
diseases. In June and July, 1900, in consequence of the
reputation which he had won in this capacity, he was ordered
to Cuba, where he was soon employed, with expert
assistance, in making a special study of typhoid fever,
which was then lowering the general health of the army
of occupation. A few months later, all his powers were
concentrated on the subject of yellow fever. He was now
the chairman of a commission, every member of which
had cheerfully agreed to submit his own body to experiment
in the hope of detecting the origin of the distemper;

and they were rewarded for their supremely unselfish
indifference to a terrible risk,—which cost one of their
comrades his life,—by the revelation of the fact that
the disease was transmitted from one person to another
exclusively by the bite of a particular variety of mosquito.
This was an epochal discovery in the history of
preventive medicine. "Dr. Reed," says General Wood,
"came to Cuba when one-third of my officers of the staff
had died of yellow fever, and we were discouraged about
combating the distemper. In the months when it was
worst in Havana, it was checked and driven from the
city."

It was calculated that, between the years 1793 and
1900, not less than one hundred thousand persons had
perished from this disease within the limits of that city.
In 1855, about twenty thousand had died miserably in
Norfolk alone. During one year only, 1878, an epidemic
of this fearful distemper in New Orleans had cost that
municipality the huge sum of sixteen million dollars.
The discovery announced by Reed opened a new chapter
in the history of vast regions of the tropics, for now they
could be rendered immune by the destruction of the communicating
pest. He was enthusiastically acclaimed
throughout the scientific world, on all continents, as the
peer of Jenner, Long, and Lister, the inspired physician
who had done as much as any one of these noble benefactors
to diminish the suffering of the human race, which
had hitherto seemed unescapable. Taking his cue from
this great forerunner, Dr. Henry R. Carter, a graduate
of the medical school in 1870, who occupied the positior.
of chief of General Gorgas's sanitary department at
Panama, exterminated the germ of yellow fever on the
Isthmus. It was directly through his scientific knowledge,
skilfully applied, that the construction of the most

splendid monument of engineering on the face of the
globe, the consummation of the greatest engineering feat
in all history, was made as practicable as the building of
the Erie Canal.

The graduates of the School of Medicine during the
Seventh Period, 1865–95, were dispersed throughout the
United States, and many of them won distinction in
their professional careers, or as instructors in colleges of
high standing, that reflected honor upon their training
in the medical lecture-rooms of the University. Bernard
Wolff, of Atlanta, Hugh H. Young, of Baltimore, J. Herbert
Claiborne, of New York, and W. H. Wilmer of
Washington, and others of equal accomplishments, have
taken rank with the foremost practitioners in America.